My Callisto
by Crimson MirrorGlass
Summary: An abomination knows that she perhaps is not as capable of human emotion as her mother is, but she suspects that what she feels for the very unstable goddess that is Callisto is far more powerful and real than anything she's ever felt. Warning, might be seen as extreme OOC for a certain character. Depending on how you view her. Yeah, I know, weird pairing. Don't judge me.
1. Mortal feelings, apparently

Disclaimer: Own nothing

Summary: Hope knows that she perhaps is not as capable of human emotion as her mother is, but she suspects that what she feels for the very unstable goddess that is Callisto is far more powerful and real than anything she's ever felt. Warning, might be seen as extreme OOC for Hope. Depending on how you view her.

 **My Callisto: Mortal feelings, apparently**

I guess my feelings are proof that I'm a paradox. I've been told by many that I cannot feel love. That I'm an abomination. I'm sure you've heard much the same, my Callisto. When was the last time anyone said your name, other than to curse it?

When I first came into existence, it was agony. The pain when I first emerged from mother's womb was unimaginable. The ice that assaulted me felt like a billion daggers were piercing my soft flesh. The dark barn where I was born only served as a fitting, heartless nest for my first moments of existence, my shrieks tearing from my throat. Every single thing about that night was dead, cold and unfeeling, yet altogether feeling will stay with me forever. That's the thing no one tells you about gods, not only do they remember everything, but they can remember the very first day of their lives with perfect clarity.

I assure you, it's a curse, and I have no doubt that you agree, given you're views on the life that you were cruelly thrust into.

When I was old enough to summon you, bearing the body of an eight-year-old child, I could split the ground open and spring you forth, Callisto. But I could not count on my feelings. I was certain that I felt nothing, just as I did for every single mortal that found me told me after my own mother threw me to the river. Meeting you was what made me realize I was capable of more emotion than I had hoped. I soon learned that it was a burden. When I first learned of you, only a month after my birth and I had grown to have a body akin to a five-year-old's, and everyone that had found me abandoned me, terrified of my quick aging, I was of course, intrigued. Who wouldn't be, knowing of a bizarre entity like you, Callisto? Callisto, daughter of Xena's wrath, the one survivor of the fire started in Cirra, the Warrior Queen, the destroyer, one of the few mortals who ever gained immortality by tricking Hercules. The woman who became a god and took down the Amazon Valasca.

Who hadn't heard of you? You were as famous as Xena, Gabrielle and Hercules themselves. I knew that if there was anyone who could give me a fighting chance against Xena, it was you. When you shot up out of the ground and stood before me, looking down at me with such amusement and unfeeling interest, or rather, should I say, lack of interest, I knew that we were destined for a rather, how shall I put it, interesting path?

At first, you were just a pawn. I promise you; that was all I thought you were or would ever be to me. I often wish that it was only that simple. But it's not. I wish I _were_ as emotionless as Xena said I was. I wish I was the monster she truly believed I was. Then I couldn't feel what I feel for you, my Callisto. Though I was capable of thoughts, plans and contemplations far beyond mortal concepts, far more than mortals could imagine, I was in the body of an eight-year old, and knew that my feelings, which I didn't quite understand at the time, wouldn't be welcomed. It wasn't just the physical age difference or that I was a different type of god from you, Callisto. Had I known what my feelings were at the time, I wouldn't have seen it that way, but I understand it now. I know that you would not have accepted whatever I felt. You were destroyed. Ruined. So broken and fractured that you couldn't feel anything. What was that that you had once said to mother while sitting at the fire, waiting for Valasca, when she was hunting mother? That you didn't feel anything? Bits and pieces, but nothing solid?

Are you surprised I know about that? My father, Dahak tells me much.

You would not have accepted my feelings. Even if I had understood my emotions at the time, you would not have accepted them. Maybe you wouldn't have understood them any more than I did, or maybe you would have mocked them, or perhaps even toyed with me. But you would not have accepted them. You couldn't have. You were just too broken, my love. Too incapable of accepting anyone's love. Even anyone's acceptance of you was an insult in your beautiful empty eyes.

I learned what it was you wanted when we discussed the death of Xena's only child, Solan. You wanted her to feel the same pain and emptiness you felt every waking moment of your never-ending life. I understood, and how could I deny you that? I might not have realized what my feelings were, but I realized that if you asked it, I would have conquered the world for you. The death of one mere mortal was simple enough. But when I got drained, momentarily, after I killed the boy's adopted father, the centaur, you were going to leave.

You turned and were about to walk out of the barn. I remember, lying there in the hay, back up against the hard, cold wooden mast, keeping the roof of the barn up, the heart that I once thought I didn't have raced in what I know now was fear. I was there again, in the other barn, with my mother pushing me out of her body. And I was terrified. I was afraid of being left alone again, like so many mortals had abandoned me over those months when they saw how fast I grew, true. But it was more than that. I…forgive me, Callisto. I know you're not capable of forgiveness, but I must ask it anyway. I wish I hadn't threatened you with my father's wrath if you decided to leave, but I was just so panicked that I'd lose you.

The one thought that ran through my mind when you were about to leave the barn had been, _I won't let you leave me._

That, and only that. I shouldn't have threatened you. I'm sorry.

I was selfish. I still am. But I suppose there's much more clarity than before. I understand so much more now. I was ageless, even as I child, but I couldn't comprehend what I felt. That is not wisdom. Countless memories and centuries of knowledge granted to me by my unfeeling, cruel father without wisdom at the helm means nothing except a dark ocean with a doomed ship and its resident holding no idea whatsoever as to where they are going. Or likely to sink.

I was such a fool. But I was so relieved when you chose to stay, Callisto, even if the choice was made just by my threat. You sat down next to me, and started talking about how you were going to get Solan. I know we were talking about something, that to anyone else would have sounded horrifying, but at the time, it was the only way I knew to speak to you that would bring you joy of any kind. And I had been right. Just the whisper of hurting Xena, oblivion, deaths and misery made that glint appear in those beautiful orbs. How could I not talk about destruction, death, murder and chaos when it made you so happy?

After I killed Solan, I knew that I had brought you pleasure, of sorts. I wasn't sure the degree of it, but I knew you enjoyed it. But then I heard what you said at the cave to Xena. Solan's death didn't help you to move on with your life like you had hoped. You were as empty as before. I knew then that I couldn't finish off the children like we had originally planned. What was the point? It didn't make you happy, then why should I do it? I almost screamed out when I saw the cave collapse, but stopped myself. Of course. You were immortal. You were a god. What did a pile of rocks mean to you? You would get out soon, I knew.

I planned to get you out, but mother appeared by the cave doorway, staring at me and opening her arms to me. In the state I was in, reeling from seeing you, my love, crushed under an avalanche of rocks, I couldn't stop myself from running into mother's arms, crying. Maybe mother didn't know what reason I had for reacting like I did, but she, for the first time ever, was holding me, knowing what exactly I was, but holding me anyway and stroking my hair, staring down at me lovingly. We pulled apart and mother stroked my face with a gentle, warm right hand. I closed my eyes, relishing her affection. The affection Xena had been so focused on making sure I didn't have. The affection that mother had been forced to withhold in order to keep away from me so that Xena never got me.

And for a foolish, foolish moment, I almost dreamed of both you and mother being in my life. Even getting along one day, for my sake. What a fool…

It was then that mother asked if I was thirsty. It had been almost an hour since the last time I had drank, so yes, I suppose I was. I should have known what was about to happen. Mortals abhor what they don't understand, fear and can't control.

It makes me wonder how the gods have lasted with as many shrines as long as they have.

I took mother's waterskin and began drinking, telling myself that I'd dig you out of the pile later. I'd tell you that we needed to give up and that the two of us and mother would leave here, and find a little town where we could all live happily together until father's power decimated all that opposed him. We would be safe because I'd request for father to leave you and mother alone, and after father's work was done, the three of us would be safe and in control of the world, as we were always meant to be.

When I pulled the lip of the waterskin from my mouth and smiled up at mother, I should have known that it was too good to be true. I really should have. But when I felt my energy beginning to sap and my vision began to blurry, I knew I had made the wrong choice. I don't think anyone would have ever expected the look on my face when I turned to mother, vision now almost gone. I trusted mother. I thought she had accepted me. But she saw me just like everyone else saw me. As a monster. A beast that needed to be destroyed before I destroyed her. She feared and hated me, just like everyone else did for something I couldn't control.

In that moment, when my life was fading and the only thing I felt, when my vision was black and I descended to the ground was the hard, sharp rock stabbing into my back on impact, my thoughts, as if yearning for a safe haven in the horrid sea that was my mother's rejection, traveled to you. I would have loved to spend even just a few months with you. To see Athens with you, see Sparta, see Rome. Perhaps even go back to Cirra and lay flowers out for your beloved lost family. There are so many places in the world that I had been told about by my father in my dreams, but I had never actually seen or experienced for myself in my very short life. So many places that I wished to see with you.

I knew at that moment, with my life slipping away, one simple thing.

 _I love you, Callisto._


	2. Queen at my side

**Chapter 2: Queen at my side:**

I was dead. In agony. For years. Well, not years. Really, only months. But it felt like ages. Yet somehow, I felt like I was recooperating. Flesh surrounded me, moisture soaked me, trapped in a strange, bulbous tube of some kind, my power ever surging higher with each drop of blood and shred of flesh granted to me. I did not know who the flesh belonged to at the time, but I do know who brought it to me.

You.

My Callisto.

I know that it was foolish of me, but even though I knew it was impossible, some foolish part of me hoped that you wanted to be with me too. I suppose it's a cruel irony that mother named me "hope." That disgusting, petty emotion that always makes mortals think that they have a chance at happiness, but always fails them in the end. I thought it was just a mortal problem.

Well, I knew in the end that it wouldn't make a difference. When I emerged from my flesh, moisture and blood prison, I would take the world, wipe it out and you, Callisto, regardless of what you felt for me, would be at my side forever.

I heard you, you know? I heard your voice, Callisto.

I might not have had much knowledge of what was happening around my cocoon, but I did hear your beautiful, teasing voice, mocking Xena and mother, mocking the priests that you dragged into the cave with me. One of the priests managed to tell you that it wasn't his blood but the blood of that foolish mortal, Seraphin, that would release me. Yes, Callisto, she's called the "priestess of blood" for a reason, imagine that.

I could hear the frustration in your voice. I may just be fantasizing, but I could have sworn that you actually _touched_ my cocoon. Did you? I felt a strange, gentle touch to the slick, fibrous flesh surrounding me. Not feeling it, but feeling it at the same time. And that's when I knew I had a heart, because it broke when I heard your next words.

You wanted me to kill you. You wanted me to give you oblivion.

I think if there was ever a time that I felt like I was stabbed even worse than when mother poisoned me and I had to retreat into this cocoon to save myself, it was at that moment, when I heard you say that. You wanted to die. You wanted me to end you. And as I hibernated there in the cocoon, not quite processing anything, in a near unconscious state, I almost wished that I had died when mother poisoned me so I wouldn't have to hear this.

Finally, thanks to that foolish mortal girl, Seraphin's blood slick on the front of my cocoon, I finally woke up, bursting from the thick, wrinkled husk of my cocoon, bursting from it, soaked in its white substance that had nurtured me to full adulthood. The pain that hit me when I shot out of the cocoon was far too similar to what I felt in the barn when mother birthed me.

And that's when I heard your beautiful voice, "Oh, mother and daughter reunion…..I'm all misty eyed." I turned to you. How long had I dreamed in my cocoon of seeing you again? It might not have been very long, but it felt like ages. Like centuries. In a cold, wet prison, unable to reach for you. Unable to see your mad, but glowing smile. There you are. My dearest, mad one. It's been torture, not seeing or touching you. I wanted to be here, with you and with mother, but Xena was not part of the deal. She was not supposed to be here. Just the sight of her made me want to destroy the temple I stood in.

I began throwing axes and swords at her and Xena was forced to use the decorative gong as a shield as she and mother ran. When they escaped, you and I were finally left alone. I can't say that I was complaining. Not at all. I would have liked more time with mother, but I wanted to see you more. And we had much to talk about.

I disposed of Seraphin. She served her purpose and as she crouched there, kneeling and praising me as a god, I slashed her throat with a knife. The little good birdie had done all she could to make me happy. Now to set her free.

You smiled and told me to do the same to you. I'm telling you, Callisto, you couldn't have been crueler to me in that moment.

I had just awakened from my long sleep, alone, without mother, fearing that I would never see you again, and you wished for your destruction. You are truly trying to torture me, aren't you? I suppose you are. You are so insane that it doesn't matter by now who you mock or torment. Even the daughter of Dahak.

We left the temple and I commanded you to give me the clothes of mother. I suppose it's strange and a sign of one of my few weaknesses, but I just wanted to be closer to mother. Even if I was doing it through a very….warped sense of closeness to her by taking her face and clothing, but I just wanted to feel like I had a part of her. Just some semblance of her besides my blood. When you waved your hand and gave me the clothing of my mother, the detestable, thick liquid that I had been bathed in cleaned from me, and I stood in the open, free in the world as I had once been denied in the past.

And that's when you made that unforgivable request, that I kill you.

My precious, wild, mad goddess….….that is one reward I cannot and will never be able to give you.

I told you that you could have been a soldier in my father's army, but that wasn't true. I would have made you much more than that. A commander. A general. A lord. A _queen._ Do you not understand? You were meant to be at my side, as my queen as I and father rule the world. You would be able to rule any kingdom you wanted. The world would be yours. No, it was _going_ to be yours. I told you that you would have your reward after we killed Xena, but I was stalling. But when it was over, I planned to take you as my queen, my wife.

You were meant to rule on the throne next to me, my dear. I needed an heir to my throne of course, but I planned for Ares to take care of that. He was a means to an end, nothing more, Callisto. He would be the blood father of my child, and when father eventually would kill him, you, mother, father and I would raise my heir.

That was how it was supposed to be, my Callisto. I promised you oblivion, only to keep your loyalty, and you were unaware completely of what glorious fate truly awaited you. I planned for the world to be yours, my dear. To hold it in your dangerous hands, if that meant that I could hold you in mine. Unfortunately, to gain everything, one must make a few…unpleasant arrangements. I walked into Ares's arms and kissed him.

Callisto, I know what you thought, but Ares was just a tool to make me pregnant to bring my father's destruction to pass. I knew that you hadn't yet conceived of my feelings, but I swear to you that I felt and still feel no love for Ares. I never have and never will. He was just for impregnation, and nothing more. I could see the disgust on your face-it came off of you like the fire you project every chance you get. I had to kiss Ares to keep any possible emotions from showing. Usually it is impossible to tell what I am thinking. Usually, I don't even show a semblance of an emotion. But I knew that if I turned to you and we locked eyes, you'd see just the depth of how your disgust affected me, and I couldn't risk that. Ares was the only one strong enough to provide me with the heir I wanted.

It was when you left, your body disappearing in godly smoke, that I truly allowed my face to contort in worry, an odd emotion that I never thought I'd feel ever again, fear, crept into me yet once more. Ares didn't see, as I had my face buried in his neck, his chuckling, hot breath by my ear. I hadn't wanted to hurt you, Callisto. Not ever. You were meant to rule with me, be my queen. I promise, Ares meant nothing to me. But knowing that you thought that I was serious about him,…it was like when you had been ready to leave when I was in that eight-year-old husk and I had to use the threat of my father to keep you. I couldn't do that again. Not again. But it hurt so much for you to leave me.

I would wait for you to return. You'd return and I'd show you that I was pregnant with Ares's child, and then I would kill Ares myself with that Hind blood infused dagger, and you would rule with us. But first, I had to get rid of Xena and see if I could lure mother to my side. An identical face, body and clothes would not do for a replacement. I needed my true mother. After a I was certain that I now was pregnant-I could feel it growing fast, as I had grown fast, I wandered into a town where I saw Xena and mother running, trying to avoid any of the citizens dying (of course, they should know by now that it is inevitable, oh well), that was when I saw you. You, Callisto, were throwing streams and balls of fire at the village, laughing, giggling like a delighted child.

I couldn't help it. My heart-that same heart I was certain I didn't have, skipped a beat. The sight of you like this was irresistible. It was like watching the most beautiful rain of fire fall or watching a million tongues of lightning strike down and cause chaos. You were the most beautiful thing for me or anyone to ever lay eyes on. I wasn't sure what you were doing here. Maybe to kill the villagers and hurt Xena in the process. Xena, unfortunately realized who I was before I could trick her into telling me where the dagger with the Hind's blood was. I was so close to getting the answer of where it was.

When I escaped and waited for you, I first approached mother and offered her a chance to be at your, my and father's side. The four of us ruling together. It was all I wanted besides power. My family. My mother, my father, my beloved queen and my son; starting to grow in my belly faster than I could imagine. My mother, however, did not accept and instead regretted not killing me permanently.

I think after so many emotional wounds to me, I say emotional because after I had finally accepted that I was in love with you, Callisto, I just resigned myself to the emotions I had, so this one was a bit more than I thought I could deal with. The only thing that kept me from killing mother on the spot was the fact that she _was_ my mother. I walked away, knowing that if I didn't, I'd kill her.

Finally, we met again at the temple, our followers readying the sacrifice to bring my father into this world. I wasn't worried about Xena. Ares was so helpful and told me that he and the Fates set up a plot that if Xena killed me, she would die too. I was counting on mother to keep me safe, even if it wasn't for my sake. What I didn't count on was what happened next. I realized that…you had sided with Xena and mother.

After so many betrayals and wounds, I don't think I could describe the pain to you. I knew you were just using me to give you oblivion, but I thought, maybe, quite possibly, you felt something, even if it was only a tiny speck of affection for me too. The only thing I had at that moment was my steel resolve. I would have you at my side. You would be my queen, my wife; you would belong to only me- _mine_ , one way or another.

Just as I was about to kill Xena, she raised the Hind blood infused blade to me and mother did the one thing I thought she'd never do.

She lunged forward and jumped on me, the both of us thrown into the opening of the volcano. I thought, when I saw her lunging, she was going to protect me. I couldn't help the wave of joy I felt when I thought she was finally embracing me as her daughter. I was wrong. Again. She wasn't protecting me, she was protecting her beloved Xena. I wish I could see mother as a fool for her love for Xena. But perhaps she was simply as foolish as I was for her love for the warrior. After all, I let myself be taken with _you_ , and look at the heartache it caused me. My mother and I…a couple of fools. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.

The two of us fell. We fell together, past all the rocks and the glowing chaos of Tartarus below. I watched mother as we descended. I did not know what else I could do, except watch my mother and savor what few moments I had with her. Perhaps I was a foolish weakling for loving mother, _and_ you as much as I did. I loved my mother, I would have done anything to have her at my side, and you saw what she did. I would do anything to have you at my side, and I saw what _you_ did. I tried not to laugh as I fell.

It was so funny. I mocked people like mother and Xena for being sentimental and call them weak. But it looks like I suffered from the same weaknesses after all.

Maybe I really _am_ part human.

I love you, Callisto.

 **I know there was stuff that happened between Hope and Callisto before the episode when Hope comes back (during the Hercules chronicles, involving the dagger and time traveling) I just wrote these chapters first. I'll get to that part later. Hope (forgive the pun) you like it so far.**


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